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And I couldn’t wait for her to realize we belonged together, too.
5
After You
Faith
The football team had an away game the night before, so I didn’t think I’d see Dominic again until the following Monday at school. But I still kept checking out the kitchen window, hoping he and Jason might show up to shoot some hoops or something.
I gave Dominic my phone number the first day we met, and we talked almost every night while he played video games.
How he comes across when you first meet him is so different from how he is. He was a little pushy and cocky on the surface, but when I talked to him one-on-one, he never cared to talk about himself at all.
Mostly, he only wanted to talk about me or tell me about stuff that went way over my head. I didn’t understand a thing about the ancient pyramids, aliens, and astral projection he went on about, but I sure loved listening to him talk about it.
I figured he might call me to hang out since it was the weekend. I just moped around all day as I waited for Dad to leave for work, my heart sinking a little more every hour the phone didn’t ring.
Carolyn was coming over to spend the night with me, though, so I didn’t flinch when the door opened as I pulled my pajamas down over my head. “What took you so long? You said you were leaving like an hour ago.”
Something in her voice made me peek up at her in the mirror when she closed the door and said, “Yeah. You’re going to want to put on something else real quick, Faith.”
She was fighting back a smile with her blue eyes as wide as they could get as she shook out her fingers. “Like” — she went straight for my dresser and crouched to pull out the bottom drawer — “those cute cut-off shorts we made you a couple of weeks ago.”
Wiggling off my pajama bottoms, I flipped them across the room to my chair. “Why? We’re just going to be watching movies. Aren’t we?”
The old faded jeans of Mom’s we ripped apart flew over her head at me, and she pulled out my t-shirt drawer. “There’s been a change of plans.”
The black v-neck I got last year that showed too much of my boobs now that I had some snapped out in front of me. “We’re going fishing at the river.”
My head popped out of my neck hole, and I blew the stray hair from my face. “Why? You hate the river and getting dirty and fishing worms.”
Circling around me, Carolyn ran a brush through my hair. “Yeah. But I like you and don’t want you to miss out on this.”
The door closed in the kitchen, and the sounds of Dad and Jason’s mumbling came through the metal register on the floor beside my foot. A split second later, I heard Dominic chiming in, too, and my eyes flipped up to Carolyn, waving for me to come with her. “Hurry up, silly, before your dad runs off with them instead.”
I shoved my feet into my sneakers, and she pulled the door open. “I’m so excited for you.”
The silver chain with my house key on it came off the bedpost, and I slid it over my head as I followed her out. “Why? We’re only hanging out like we’ve been doing all week at school, except we’re doing it somewhere else.”
At the bottom of the staircase, she pulled me to a stop and shoved her finger into my belly with every whispered thought. “On a Saturday, after dark, and in his truck. That sounds like a date to me.”
My dad was one of those laid-back guys who got along with everyone. So, when I found him and Dominic in the kitchen trading advice on fishing poles and which bait to use, I bypassed them both to shrug at Jason. “What’s going on?”
Screwing on the lid of his apple juice bottle first, he tossed it in the trash can beside the door. “Hope we’re not ruining your plans or anything, but we only have so many weekends left before it gets cold again. Right?”
Dominic slid his eyes to me and grinned while he listened to Dad lie about the size of the fish he caught up at the lake, and I wiggled my fingers back at him. “It’s cool. We were just going to watch TV and stuff.”
Dad would keep Dominic talking forever if he could, so Jason opened the back door to inch away. “Alright, kids. Let’s roll out.”
After he shook Dad’s hand, Dominic shot him with his finger gun. “Great to meet you, sir.”
Leaning back against the sink, Dad grabbed his beer bottle and pointed it at him as he waited by the door for me. “Good to put a face with a sweatshirt.”
Because I never left the house or got a phone call when he was around, Dad didn’t question where I was or what I was doing when he wasn’t. So all I got from him when I reached up to kiss his cheek was a, “Have fun and be careful. See you in the morning.”
An old-timey, light blue truck that didn’t seem like it had been driven before was sitting beside Dad’s piece of junk in the driveway. On the passenger side, Jason climbed in right beside Carolyn, and I hesitated because it looked like there wasn’t a single inch left for me to sit on.
Waiting with the driver’s door open, Dominic hung out the window and swept his hand inside. “After you, darlin’.”
